noise after suspension work
 

99 ranger 138k miles

just replaced the shocks, tie rod ends, lower ball joints, upper control arms including upper ball joints because for MY truck you cant pop out the upper ball joints and that sucked. also replaced the brake pads. i gave it a couple of days and then got it aligned. two days later in drifted to the right so they aligned it again and switched the front tires. no drift now.

after the work i have realized that the steering is pretty tight. after coming out of a turn the wheel doesnt turn itself back all that far. i have to turn the wheel back to get it straight. is that ok?

and now for the problem- there is a sound coming from the passenger side. it is only when turning either direction. doesnt always do it but sometimes it will be three or four times while i turn. it is a light thud/pop type sound. you can feel it a little bit in the truck. my wife turned the wheels slowly back and forth and i grabbed the upper control arm and it seem to be coming form the new uppper ball joint. it is a sealed joint and was very very stiff when i bought it. is this normal? will it eventually stop by it self? i didnt attempt to add any additional grease. what do ya think?
thanks

What ball joints did you get, the OE cheapy replacements or brand name ones? A thud/pop noise is NOT good.

had to buy the entire upper arm for the upper ball joints. dont know about them being "cheapy". the arms with ball joints were 90$ (US) each at autozone. i was hoping that since they were so stuff that they would loosen up sometime.

anyone have any more ideas?

well from the research i've done that sounds pretty cheap for upper control arms and ball joints my guess is that is where your problem is but thats all i've got lol

id say give it a little bit longer and if it gets worse try taking it back because it sounds like you got a deffective one just my.02 but again i dont know a whole lot about front end work

the idea of taking all of that crap apart to return the upper arm makes me want to vomit. why cant things just work? crap

is there somewhere else i should of ordered the parts? i thought autozone was ok. ??

Did you torque everything down right? Go back and do a quick check. Check your shock mounts. The sound could be a loose bearing as well. And it doesn't matter how 'cheap' the parts are, they are OE grade.